Posted
by
timothyon Sunday April 22, 2012 @07:02AM
from the dinner-and-a-movie dept.

PolygamousRanchKid writes "If early humans had been vegans we might all still be living in caves, Swedish researchers suggested in an article Thursday. When a mother eats meat, her breast-fed child's brain grows faster and she is able to wean the child at an earlier age, allowing her to have more children faster, the article explains. 'Eating meat enabled the breast-feeding periods and thereby the time between births to be shortened,' said psychologist Elia Psouni of Lund University in Sweden. 'This must have had a crucial impact on human evolution.' She notes, however, that the results say nothing about what humans today should or should not eat."

I like how the researcher feels the need to close off with a "don't antagonise vegetarian groups" political-correctness statement, lest she risks being eaten alive (pun intended).

The funny thing is that statements like yours are the obligatory ones these days (just look at your statement and the responses). Your statement, attacking a position that nobody has taken, is the new political correctness.

What a bizarre interpretation of the world. The industry of death is agriculture taken to its cold, 'logical' ends where we do everything to maximize profit, cruelty and unsustainability. You are not necessarily supporting those things by making purchases of organic foods and, for animal products, ones that involve pastured animals rather than caged and grain-fed animals. I personally am not vegetarian but I rarely eat meat other than if you count my daily fish oil pill. I enjoy dairy and eggs but I pur

I buy my beef from a farmer two miles away, there are no growth hormones and they eat grass and oats. My eggs come frome another farm 8 miles away and yes I can actually see the chickens running around the yard eating gross bugs, mice and other nonsense, funny thing the yolks are orange instead of yellow. Milk I buy from the store because I do not have a cow and it is illegal to sell raw milk, my mom even has a cream seperator we use sometime when we can get a few gallons of raw milk. The biggest problem with vegans (yes I ran into some in the city at a little girls birthday party) is what obnoxious, self-rightous little twits they are. They are all urban dwelling smug turds that think they are better than everyone.

Turns out, if you're not acting like a dick towards them, they won't be acting like dicks towards you - whudda thunk, eh?

Good for you. Why do you assume I'm being a dick? I don't argue during meals, it's bad manners. I never did anything but politely listen to the rant, and that was about it. Of course I never socialized with them again, putting them into the category of sidewalk preachers who tell you you're going to hell unless you convert. I don't say anything but "no thank you" to them, and likewise don't seek them out for company.

Even today, children of vegans still die occasionally due to malnutrition. While careful vegetarians (such as many Hindus whose cuisine has adapted to this) can get everything they need from normal food, vegans need supplements to stay healthy. This is especially the case for children, who haven't built up a store of, for example, B12 yet. Childhood malnutrition quickly leads to retarded development and hence eventually poor intelligence.

Man was never made to be vegan and, judging from our closest relatives the Chimps, probably not vegetarian either.

Man as a species wasn't "made" for some higher purpose, but this is probably a sloppy way of saying that homo sapiens evolved with a biological predisposition to consume animal fat and protein as a primary diet source. In other words, man as a species wasn't "made" for a purpose, but any living man was made to eat meat.

In his book "Why We Get Fat", author Gary Taubes makes the point (which the Paleo diet advocates also make) that humans didn't develop anything like organized agriculture until about 8,000 years ago, too recent in our physical evolution to have developed a predominantly grain-consuming physiology.

He references cross-cultural anthropological studies of discovered primitive societies (no organized agriculture) that demonstrate a predominant consumption of animal fat and protein, which tends to reinforce the idea that human physiology is actually evolved to consume animal fats and protein as a primary calorie source.

I highly recommend this book, or if you're up for a more sophisticated read, his earlier book "Good Fat, Bad Fat" which is largely the same topics in a more in-depth version.

Nice disingenuous use of the term "primary diet source." There is in fact no such belief that humans with incredible ability to discern plants ever evolved in a situation where meat was more than a "secondary diet source," whereas in the modern world, a typical human will eat meat every day, and almost as often, with every meal. Foraging is just as much part of human nature as hunting.

ok, how about we study our physiology instead? Our teeth show that we have evolved to eat both meat and vegetables, our eyes are forward facing for depth perception as used by carnivores for hunting, as opposed to side facing for wide field of vision as used by herbivores. And most telling is that our body is incapable of surviving in most parts of the planet with only locally grown plants. Being a healthy vegan wasn't even possible until very recently, and requires a lot of work, and for most of the world,

I guess I'd ask why it would be illogical to extrapolate back to pre-agricultural populations, or about 8,000 years ago, the generally accepted start of agriculture in human history.

I suppose it's *possible* that these humans at a diet primarily composed of some now-extinct non-meat plant source that is currently unavailable to the studied non-agricultural populations, but that's an even larger assumption than extrapolation from the studied bodies of populations.

Man was never made to be vegan and, judging from our closest relatives the Chimps, probably not vegetarian either.

Man wasn't made, man evolved. And we still do. We adapt to our surroundings. Imagine a situation in the future when production of meat for mass consumption isn't viable. In such a case, we will (hopefully) adapt into surviving on a vegetarian diet, perhaps by GM foods or simply paying more attention to eating a broader span of foods.

I'll just leave this here. [eatright.org] The much publicized cases you're thinking of are parents starving their children and then trying to blame it on veganism, not children just spontaneously dropping dead because vegan diets are inadequate (they aren't).

It's not just what they are fed after birth (most vegetarian mothers are sane enough to feed their children properly), but also what their mother eats during pregnancy, which can cause just as much problems but receives much less attention.

Milk is vegan, if the animal you obtain it from, consents to give it to you - in other words, human breast milk can be vegan (though don't try to steal any from the next pregnant woman you see on the subway - that won't go well).

But since non-human animals can't give us consent to take the milk they produced for their own offspring, that stolen cows' or goats' milk is not vegan.

Milk is vegan, if the animal you obtain it from, consents to give it to you [...]

But since non-human animals can't give us consent to take the milk they produced for their own offspring, that stolen cows' or goats' milk is not vegan.

That's highly subjective -- How do you define "consent" when it comes to animals without speech? Modern cows certainly don't look like they're objecting to that part of their treatment (it even saves their lives, actually). If you're saying they only do that because they were bred that way (which is correct)... Well, the same can be said for human females.

well, one easy standard to apply is "would they do were it not forced on them?" i have yet to read about or see any animal in the wild stockpile their milk outside their bodies, let alone for consumption by another species.

Do cows actively try to avoid being milked? If so, then one could assume they object to it. Otherwise, given that they have a means to object, and they use it in other situations, but don't in this situation, it's fair to conclude they are not being forced against their will.

Having grown up on a dairy farm I can tell you that the cows will wait patiently outside the barn door for it to be opened for their morning and evening milking. They'd file in without coaxing almost every time. They had a daily routine and they got to know it very quickly.

Daylight savings time really messes with them. I remember walking out to the barn an hour earlier than normal because of the time change and the cows just stared at me as I walked to the barn, seemingly confused over my presence. I'd open the door and they would not walk in. It took quite the convincing to get them inside. When the clock was set back the cows would, I assume since I was asleep, have been standing and waiting by the door as they let their milk down allowing it to run on the ground. In this case what would normally be a rather sedate filing in would be a mad dash. I can only assume that they were either hungry (as we fed them while they were milked) or their udders were hurting from the extra hour wait.

I will tell you that a cow or steer can object. It might not be vocal but they will put up a fight if they don't want to go where you want them to. I was spared much of the bruising that others in my family got. Mom had her arm pinned between a steer and a wall. She saw we were having trouble loading the steers and came out to help. She didn't have to do that and she got bruised up loading the last steer we sent to market before my parents retired from farming. Two of my brothers got beat up by the bull in separate instances, bruised up their ribs pretty good. A steer got loose while loading them up for market. I chased that stupid thing for at least a mile before it got too tired to keep moving. When I caught up with it that steer ran at me with its last breath and I had to leap out of the way. It collapsed and practically passed out. Dad brought the stock trailer out to the steer and it was much more willing to get in by that time. It was cooler in there than out in the sun.

The cows rarely objected to being milked. The only ones that objected were those that had their first calf. The herd mentality kept them from objecting too much. They did not like being separate from the herd so when they saw the others file into the barn they'd reluctantly follow. They might jump and kick the first few times being milked but they got into the routine after a couple days.

When they objected to something it usually resulted in mending fencing, lots of foot work, and sometimes bruises. My dad told stories of when the cattle were wilder and would kick out windows and light bulbs in the barn when they objected. The light bulbs were over our heads and the windows set high enough that they would rarely try to use them as an escape, not that they'd even fit through but that didn't stop them from trying. We were fortunate, I can recall hearing about people that were killed from cattle that objected to something.

But since non-human animals can't give us consent to take the milk they produced for their own offspring, that stolen cows' or goats' milk is not vegan.

Well, if you go into that, plants cannot give consent either. It seems like the only way out for vegans is starving to death.

"Giving consent" assumes being aware of the implications of what is happening. Unless you assume animals have the mental capability of understanding the abstract notion of property and the difference between stealing and buying, the act of giving consent has no meaning for them.

Milk is vegan, if the animal you obtain it from, consents to give it to you...[snip] But since non-human animals can't give us consent to take the milk they produced for their own offspring, that stolen cows' or goats' milk is not vegan.

The problem with these arguments is where you stop. Many strict vegans I know won't eat honey, because the bees aren't consenting to give up their honey. I've even heard vegans argue about whether we can eat yeasted bread -- or is it "exploiting" the yeast to make it rise for us?

And, of course, once you're getting to the level of yeast, the whole animal/plant thing starts to break down. Why not talk about exploiting the lettuce by tearing off its leaves, exploiting the carrot by stealing its roots. These are essential parts of the plant. Even if you eat only fruit, you should be sure to protect the scattering of the seeds to be sure you're not interfering with natural reproduction.

I'm not at all saying there is anything wrong with being vegetarian or vegan. But everyone has to draw some sort of line somewhere, and it's always going to be arbitrary. Everything below that line is open to exploitation, and everything above that line should be protected.

I don't mean to be cynical, but the vast majority of vegetarians I've talked to don't have any depth to their philosophy. It's usually about some sort of worry about cuddly things; hence, many are happy to eat fish. Others (usually more principled) extend it to all vertebrates, some go down as far as bees and silk worms. In the end, many discuss things like "sentience" and ability to "feel" pain, but even most plants will react (slowly, admittedly) to any significant damage -- isn't that proof that they don't "like" what we are doing to them?

In the end, all of this talk about "consent" and "sentience" and "exploitation" and whatever usually goes out the window the moment an ugly (but often harmless) spider is crawling up your kid's back, and you swat the damn thing down and step on it.

No, water is what we drink. Those things with calories and nutrients are liquid foods and need to be carefully evaluated as such lest they are abused. Consider the prevalence of juice in the diet, ignoring alcohol and soda.

No, you merely have a lay understanding of nutrition. I can't help you there -- you have to help yourself. Here's one potential start if, for example, you want to learn how sugar (and therefore juice) is a distinct poison:

But this is really more of a problem with ignorance than anything else. If they're dying of malnutrition, they're certainly doing something wrong.

Much of this is half-remembered from stuff I last studied in about 1995, so don't take it as the gospel truth - more as a jumping off point for further research.

You're right that it's ignorance. There's a number of proteins the human body needs. It's relatively easy to supply all of these with a varied, omnivorous diet but rather harder with a vegan diet because there are few vegetable sources of one or two crucial amino acids. IIRC soy is pretty much the only source for at least one such amino acid.

Some feminist psychos will nuts of those results, and not over the mens' nuts. Here is an example of meat and sex, gone wrong... Seriously and dangerously wrong:

"The sexual politics of meat: A feminist-vegetarian critical theory" (http://www.amazon.com/The-Sexual-Politics-Meat-Feminist-Vegetarian/dp/0826411843)

"First published in 1990, The Sexual Politics of Meat is a landmark text in the ongoing debates about animal rights. In the two decades since, the book has inspired controversy and heated debate. The Sexual Politics of Meat argues that what, or more precisely who, we eat is determined by the patriarchal politics of our culture, and that the meanings attached to meat eating are often clustered around virility. We live in a world in which men still have considerable power over women, both in public and in private. Carol Adams argues that gender politics is inextricably related to how we view animals, especially animals who are consumed. Further, she argues that vegetarianism and fighting for animal rights fit perfectly alongside working to improve the lives of disenfranchised and suffering people, under the wide umbrella of compassionate activism."

That book can be seen as part of the ongoing degradation of general observations and science into something very dangerous - views and opinions based on random whims, often with a feminist, religious, sexual or otherwise subjective world-view.

One can hope these new results will help raising the arguments to a decent intellectual level.

First, books are only dangerous if we feel we know everything there is to know, and everything we know is fact. For instance, a book about Homo Sapiens dwelling a caves over 200,000 years ago and evolving to Homo Sapiens Sapiens will be unwelcome information to those who believe that the earth has only existed for thousands of years and Humans were placed here fully formed. In the absence of an attachment to assumptions, such reading is merely philosophy. It serves to put our worldview against another, al

If early humans had had gills we might all not exist at all.
When a mother breathes air, her breast-fed child survives and she is able to wean the child before shortly dying of suffocation herself, allowing her to have more children faster.

'Breathing air enabled the breast-feeding periods and thereby the time between births to be shortened from infinity to a few years', said slashdot reader Capta1n Obvi10us. 'This must have had a crucial impact on human evolution'.

An Anonymous Coward noted in a reply, however, that the results say nothing about what humans today should or should not breathe.

For a long time, humans were pretty dumb doing little but make "the same very boring stone tools for almost 2 million years," says Philipp Khaitovich of the Partner Institute for Computational Biology in Shanghai. Then, 150,000 years ago, our big brains suddenly got smart. We started innovating. We tried different materials. We started creating art and maybe even religion. To understand what caused the cognitive spurt, researchers examined chemical brain processes known to have changed in the past 200,000 years. Comparing apes and humans, they found the most robust differences were for processes involved in energy metabolism [livescience.com]. The finding suggests that increased access to calories spurred our cognitive advances although definitive claims of causation are premature. In most animals, the gut needs a lot of energy to grind out nourishment from food sources. But cooking, by breaking down fibers and making nutrients more readily available, is a way of processing food outside the body. Eating (mostly) cooked meals would have lessened the energy needs of our digestion systems, thereby freeing up calories for our brains. Today, humans have relatively small digestive systems and allocate around 20% of their total energy to the brain [genomebiology.com], compared to approximately 13% for non-human primates and 2-8% for other vertebrates. While other theories for the brain's cognitive spurt have not been ruled out, the finding sheds light on what made us, as Khaitovich put it, "so strange compared to other animals."

Indeed it doesn't seem to indicate much at all as regards what mothers should eat today. I know two vegan mums and their (vegan) kids weaned off early and are very bright, healthy little 5 and 9 year old kids.

And as we all know, anecdotal evidence always trumps scientific research.

The scientific research says that vegetarian and vegan diets adequately meet nutritional needs and are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including infancy and early childhood (American Dietetic Association)

And before someone suggests that the American Dietetic Association is not qualified to make that determination.The association has 72,000 members and ~72% are registered dietitians and ~50% of those hold advanced degrees.

As opposed to "scientists" like the ones in this article? The flaws of this supposed study are layered so deeply they form a nice, comfy mat you could sit upon and contemplate the existence of anything coming from it, conclusions upon conclusions that have no basis other than the fact that they reinforce each other in some way based upon chosen parameters. Real science requires allowing for many possibilities, not going with some random wacky-ass idea for correlation and running with it to the logical ends of the Earth.

They'll also push a high-carb, low-fat diet which won't do anything for you but leave you hungry and make you fat.

The medical industry bought into Ancel Keys early and misleading research on dietary cholesterol and heart disease, none of which has been scientifically validated over time, despite a ton of money (6 NIH studies, $100 million dollars).

Of course, once careers and status is on the line, nothing is let go, and we're still stick in a paradigm that insists that eating carbs and eschewing animal fat is somehow good for us when it's been scientifically well established for 75 years that insulin is the primary driver of fat accumulation.

If the ADA is so fucking smart about diet, why do so many people go on high carb, low-fat, reduced calorie diets and end up as fat as they were when they started? It's a false paradigm.

Every legitimate low carb diet I've read about is not calorie restricted. There is no calorie counting, and those following the diet are encouraged to "eat until they are full".

Such diets are also high in fat; fat has more than double the calories than carbohydrates, so it is unlikely that such diets are inherently low calorie, although the satiation associated with high fat consumption often produces a decrease in calorie consumption comparied to a high carb diet.

Atkins specifically, yes. But he wasn't promoting a healthy diet, he was promoting a weight-loss program. And although he had some correct ideas, his diet as outlined was neither healthy nor successful as a weight loss program in the long run.

But some of the things he got right are that it's perfectly fine to be low carb (it's also perfectly fine to be relatively high carb, but one needs to be careful about certain metabolic issues that can ensue). The idea that low carb is somehow better for weight loss is flawed. Some people will eat less on low carb, and some people will eat more, and ultimately, calories decide weight, so Atkins works for some and not others. A good portion of initial weight loss is not fat, but water and glycogen, which gives a false initial impression, especially compared with other diets. Even if you overeat on Atkins, at first you will lose non-fat weight, while you are actually gaining fat! Though I doubt that's too common, and that most people are under eating, and thus losing fat as well.

Ultimately, however, because Atkins tends to be difficult for most people to follow for more than a year (too restrictive relative to the culinary milieu in America), people fall off the diet, and without some solid guiding principles, go back to their old ways of eating, and regain all their weight (as well as making up for lost time, go beyond it). It's essentially a magic trick (water/glycogen), a bio-hack (low carb, *high protein*, medium fat, which helps people naturally eat less (really, low carb, high fat, medium protein, is superior for long-term health)), in the short term, and unsustainable in the long term (for most people).

Two things that I don't think he ever touched upon, but would definitely help to make his diet more balanced and reasonable, is that saturated fat does not cause heart disease, and in fact is extremely healthy (your body absolutely *loves* using it as a fuel. So much so that it turns carbs into it and stores it for use later, and burns it every night while you sleep, and every day between meals!), and cholesterol does not cause heart disease. Cholesterol is an important molecule for life (why would your body make it if it wasn't?), but abnormally small, damaged cholesterol (which is uncommon except for people eating a junk-food type diet, which in America now means almost everyone), gets trapped in damaged arteries. Cholesterol is normally too large to do so (HDL, what is commonly called the good cholesterol). So is LDL, but VLDL is not, and that's where the correlation comes from.

Anyway, Atkins took a few correct notions, and over applied them resulting in a reasonably OK, but ultimately inaccurate weight loss theory.

From the American Dietetic Association position paper on the subject where vegan diets are considered appropriate:

However, vegans and some other vegetarians may have lower intakes of vitamin B-12, calcium, vitamin D, zinc, and long-chain n-3 fatty acids.

Oh, oh. A vegan diet has a hard time fulfilling the above dietetic requirements. But not to worry. If you eat all day non-stop you can make up for that:

Research indicates that an assortment of plant foods eaten over the course of a day can provide all essential amino acids and ensure adequate nitrogen retention and use in healthy adults; thus, complementary proteins do not need to be consumed at the same meal (8).

How about other components such as EPA and DHA which are important for cardiovascular health as well as eye and brain development. Surely vegans are fine since the ADA says those diets are "appropriate"

Vegetarians, and particularly vegans, tend to have lower blood levels of EPA and DHA than nonvegetarians (15). DHA supplements derived from microalgae are well absorbed and positively influence blood levels of DHA, and also EPA through retroconversion (16).

Oops. The ADA suggestion is that you take supplements in the form of fortified soy milk..

How about B12? According to the ADA. the very "appropriate" vegan diet just cannot give you enough B12:

For vegans, vitamin B-12 must be obtained from regular use of vitamin B-12-fortified foods.

So the diet is appropriate so long as you take supplements to make up for its inappropriateness. Ok, got it.

It's a myth that whole grains are notably more nutritious than processed white flour.

Hmm... do you have a reliable citation for this claim? Not some paleo or Atkins diet page or something, but something, say, peer-reviewed?

And, yes, in a raw form, whole grains often are hard to digest and release nutrients, but if they are cooked, soaked, or spouted, it gets easier to absorb these things. Regardless, I'd hardly say it's a "myth" that whole grains are more nutritious than processed counterparts. Except for the few vitamins that processed wheat and rice tend to be specifically fortified with, whole grains generally contain more vitamins, minerals, protein, other useful fats, etc. If you eat them raw, you won't absorb most of them, but if you break down the grain by grinding or cooking or soaking (as almost everyone does), you'll get more of the nutrients out.

The primary basis for this assertion is observational studies where people who eat whole grains over processed grains live longer. This shows a correlation, but not a causation.

Okay, fine. I'm on board with your "this is only a correlation" business. Yet, your alternative proposed explanations are again only hypotheses: they don't mean that whole grains don't have any benefits over refined ones.

But, ultimately, grains can't hold a candle to meat when it comes to nutrients

You're comparing apples to oranges here. Grains shouldn't be seen as replacing meat in a diet. If you switch from an omniverous diet to a vegan diet, grains aren't where you need to add foods to replace the meat. Instead, you need to consume many more nutritious vegetables, fruits, legumes, seeds, and nuts, all of which are much more nutritious (in terms of providing vitamins, minerals, and other trace nutrients) than grains. And, notably, most of these are just as or more nutritious by this standard than meat is.

Meat is best at certain vitamins and minerals, as well as a good source for complete protein. If high in fat, it is also a good calorie source. But, with the exception of B12, you can get those vitamins and minerals in plant sources (though admittedly you have to work harder for some of them, particularly if you won't drink milk or eat any eggs). As for protein, a mix of grains, legumes, seeds, and nuts will give you a pretty good source of protein too. For the rest of the trace nutrients, vegetables and fruits are better than meat or grains.

That's why flour and bread in America are generally fortified. Back at the turn of the century, Americans were extremely malnourished, and bread was the primary culprit.

I'm not sure why you bring up this nice story, which I'm well aware of. But it has nothing to do with a discussion of whole grains, since Americans (even poor ones) had mostly been eating white flour for long before 1900. This malnutrition says nothing about whether whole grains are better or worse.

If you want to argue that placing too much emphasis on grains in the diet is a problem, I'll gladly agree with you. Grains are mostly for calories, not for (most) nutrients. But if you are going to eat grains, which most hard-working people in the past had to do to get enough calories, whole grains are probably better in part because they are harder to digest. While some of the benefits of whole grains are in question or unproven, I do think a link between diabetes and processed grains makes a lot of sense, given the way processed white flour and rice is almost like pure sugar in the way it screws with our body chemistry. For that reason alone, I'd say whole grains are usually a better choice.

So, when I say "fake processed shit", I'm including things you might be mistaking for being healthy.

Great. So, the fact that I bake my own bread, which generally includes at least a half dozen whole grains plus some seeds or some other stuff is no better than Wonderbread. Forget about cooking up some quinoa -- I'm just as good eating that cheap white rice. Thanks for educating me.

I'm sure if he knows the mothers then they would let him know if they have any health related problems. Plus it doesn't take a doctor to tell if a kid is malnourished. It's always interesting when there's an article posted about veganism and all the haters come out trying to say it's an unhealthy diet. I've been vegan for 12 years and I'm a very healthy person and I don't take any supplements. My wife is pregnant with our first child and her doctor says she's totally fine to be vegan and have the baby. Not sure why people get so offended by vegans.

Yes, all through the world everybody is well-fed and not malnourished by being vegetarians. Now, if you believe that, go to India.

The real difference between between a vegan and a normal omnivore human, is that the omnivore (with a simple balanced diet) will provide the best for the infant. The vegan must work hard at it to get a balanced diet.

All depends on where. My wife's family on her dad's side is from Chennai and she hates to eat meat. As such, many on her father's side are smaller due to their vegan approach.Her mom is from Kerala and will eat fish, but typically would not eat other meat when growing up. But as such, they are taller then those from Chennai. Then you have northern India. Up there, anything goes. As such, they are bigger.

And milk is really not a good enough source of protein. Basically, you still need more, OR you require a tightly controlled diet (which almost all vegetarians lack except those that are educated ).

As long as they don't yack into my meat lover's pizza, I don't mind them.

It's always the same. You go to a restaurant, order something and you may rest assured some militant Vegan is in the audience, coming over and asking whether you know where that meat comes from and what the animal had to endure... my standard answer is something akin to this:

Yes, the cow never saw a green leaf, it was raised on silo food, wedged in between its peers, with its horns and hooves cut and mutilated so they can't harm each other despite the constant stress of being so close to each other with no way to turn around and nowhere to lay down but in their own filth, being shot up with antibiotics every other day 'cause else they'd be swarming with disease. Then they get pushed towards the transport, with cattle prods because they don't know how to move, they never set one foot in front of the other so they have no idea what is expected to them, then they're wedged into a transport, without any food or water, often for days, the stress even killing already some, before they're again pushed with electric shocks towards the killing floor where they get wedged into a small box where they get a bolt to the brain stem. If they're lucky, sometimes they just use a large hammer to bash in their head, and even the bolt doesn't really kill them, there's still brain waves when the next step comes where they get cut open and cut in half, technically while still alive.

Can I fuckin' eat now or do I have to go on with the less savory parts?

My lady was once a raw food vegan fascist. One day she had the revelation that a carrot was alive and she couldn't bring herself to kill it. This led directly to the concept that all the food is alive, so fucking eat it. (or as I like to put it, THIS IS NECESSARY. LIFE FEEDS ON LIFE FEEDS ON LIFE FEEDS ON LIFE FEEDS ON...) A few years ago we were in the habit of eating a lot of chicken sausage. One day she asked me "Why is this sausage so good?" The answer was "because it's made out of pork". The moral is, people can change.

well, perhaps that's the moral. or perhaps it should be that a vegan that won't eat carrots doesn't represent the vegan community at all.

Or perhaps the moral is that we generally eat food that was previously alive. Where we draw lines about exploiting that "life" is usually based on arbitrary divisions projecting human feelings and morals onto things that have a very different experience of the world.

For most of the vegans I know who have a problem eating honey, I think the carrot really represents a conundrum. It is really a greater problem to exploit the work of bees than it is to rip a living organism out of the ground and kill it completely to consume it? Some people say that the bees still have a nervous system that can feel pain or something and harming or exploiting them is a problem... but have you never had a garden and stepped on a plant, or tore a leaf, or made some sort of other damage or barrier or whatever to the plant's growth? The plant will respond (albeit more slowly). It is a living thing, and it has systems designed to react to the environment, as all animals do.

The line is always arbitrary. For most people in my experience, it's primarily about "cute and cuddly" things more than anything else... and I'm not sure that's a good thing to build a moral philosophy on.

There's a long list of reasons why veganism is stupid, but chief among them is that throughout time, nobody ever lived that way. Anyone who may have lived that way was probably eaten by someone else, because there are no vegetarian indigenes, let alone vegan. It's simply grossly inefficient. We did not evolve to eat plants alone, which you can tell by looking at our teeth or at our stomach, let alone at both of them. As for the moral argument that killing for food is wrong, tell that to a polar bear —

A week? Might want to check your facts. The transit time for all matter is on average 24 hours, regardless of source.

Difference is, we actually digest the meat. Meanwhile, much plant food must make it to the large intestine for bacterial fermentation. Once there, the body absorbs the fatty acids created by fermentation. Highly inefficient. In fact, we don't even need to eat plant food to survive, it's just an omnivorous adaptation -- starch is easy energy (though nutritionally void).

You're right about the canines. Chances are, like many primates, is that early homonids scavanged rotting meat. To this day, humans prefer partially putrified meat - also fire came about to help.

Oh, and I have a PhD in metabolic biochemistry, thank you very much -- I know a lot more than some quack "nutritionist".

You are wrong. It does not take meat a week to be digested. All foods take 24 to 72 hours to complete their journey through the digestive system. You will get more or less nutrients from foods depending on how easy it is to extract the nutrients, but the trip takes the same time. Some foods have to be cooked to get any nutrition from them. Some foods are better eaten raw as the heat of cooking will destroy the nutrients. Know your foods. Most meat should be cooked. Many beans and grains should be cooked. Most fruit and many vegetables are best eaten raw.

Colon cleanses are not needed for your health and are more likely to harm you than do any good. Your natural processes do a fine of job of keeping your digestive track clean and healthy.

I agree with you on the whole "don't call vegans stupid...". But the rest of your logic doesn't flow common science. If anything the rest of your post supports the grandparent's point more than yours.

Meat does not take a week to process. It hits the blood stream much faster than veggies. Fruits are only slightly faster but only in terms of energy. Armies incorporated meat into thier diets cause it was the fastest way to power them. Given choice, they would eat meat over veggies.

Our canines don't need to be anywhere as lethal as wolfs, cause we don't eat raw or full game meat. We don't take down live game or rip through hide to eat. We cook our food. Our teeth are much closer to omnis than herbs. Compare to apes or bears and you will see that if they had cooked food, they wouldnt need their rippers. As for their vegi side, they don't consume heavy veggies. They primarily go for softer, sweeter veggies like berries, and simple leaves.

As for the stomach, we have very small stomachs relatively compared to most other species. This is because cooked food digests easier. Compare that to a cow that needs four stomachs and multiple regurgitations to extact energy from grass. And a good portion of the waste is still in grass form. Most carnies have smaller relative stomachs than herbs.

The reality is that meat is a far more energy dense, and higher nutritional source than veggies. That doesn't mean we have to consume it, cause we are humans who can think in terms of morality and we aren't anywhere as limited as the rest of the species on this plant. But from a raw biological point, let's not kid ourselves.

Also to add, unless you only eat fruit, you are killing things... or worse!

They're not all flat grinders. In fact, they're mostly shaped for cutting and tearing. Only 3 out of 8 are grinders.

Please don't say canines because if you look at real canines and then look at a humans canines they are totally different. Same name, but functionally not the same. Real canines tear through flesh a lot easier than the human canines can.

That's because we don't chase down our still living (and running) food and try to bite them to death. We have omniovore canines.

Look no one can predict what we are supposed to eat...

We don't need to _predict_ it, we _know_ what we're supposed to eat. Our teeth, digestive systems and metabolism tell us what we should eat. Our history tells us what we eat. Our pre-history has left us evidence of what we eat and how we evolved to eat it.

...but to assume that being vegan is a stupid diet isn't logic speaking, that's culture speaking.

Veganism is also a cultural artifact, driven by emotion, not logic, and by your logic, stupid. "Aw poor cute animal, I have to kill it to eat it. I'll eat plants instead." Guess what? You have to kill most plant foods to eat them, too.

Not sure why you get offended by veganism, but you should look into it more before you criticize it.

I have looked into it. It's a denial of human nature, an attempt to feel morally superior and an arrogant deceit of one's self. It's like self-flagellation, which is almost as offensive as veganism. The truth is simple: all things that live, eat. And for all living things to eat, something must die. This is the cycle of life.

You should ask a nutritionist about the vegan diet and how healthy it is. Get a professionals point.

So you consulted a professional vegan nutritionist for this objective, balanced point of view?

Like I said, I've been a strict vegan for 12 years (no honey or processed sugars).

Ah yes, avoid the evil animal-based processed sugars to be a strict vegan.

I don't know if it's contributed to my health, but it definitely hasn't hurt it.

I've been around vegans, mostly through work, but a few in social settings, and while it isn't universal, it's more like 90 percent:

We get to hear how they are a vegan within 5 minutes of meeting them.

We get to hear how they are healthier than us corpse eaters.

We usually get "looks" if they see that we are wearing anything leather.

In general, a lot of sanctimony.

There was one who I worked with who pretty much wrecked our department's social life. We used to go to lunch several times a week. When this priceless person came to work with us, she came along. Every restaurant waiter would get grilled about every thing. This woman was determined nothing that touched anything that touched meat would get past her lips. Then we'd get a lecture and more the condescension if we had the audacity to order anything with meat. Quickly whittled the lunches down to no one going. She was the extreme example, but most others had that thing going on to a lesser or greater degree.

When she left, we had a party the day after she left town. Cheeseburgers all around!

Why does this happen? I think that it is a sort of neurosis, where people believe that they have to eliminate evil from their life, and begin to gauge everything they do as "good" or "not good". Obviously there are some unpleasant aspects to killing animals to eat them, so they can quickly home in on that as in the "not good" category.

But a person who eats meat is no more or less good or bad as a person who eats plants only. Like it or not, almost all animals and a fair number of plants take their sustenance by depriving other animals or plants of their life. The Rhododendron in my yard that poisons the soil to kill other plants that take root there, and uses their composted remains, or the Venus flytrap plant or pitcher plant that traps and consumes bugs are not evil or bad - they are just what they are. And of course those composted remains mean that plants are practicing a form of cannibalism, taking nutrition from their dead ancestors.

So there is one answer to your question. The short version is that many Vegans are unpleasant to be around.

In my situation it's always the other way around. The only time I tell people I'm vegan is when they want to go somewhere to eat. Which in the USA is a lot of the time. All of the aggression comes from the other side though, not mine. But I have noticed that over the years the aggression has turned more into a curiosity and more people like to ask me about the diet. Some of the time they want me to bring them some vegan food to try. But online its a totally different story. Aggression and name calling always starts with the non-vegans. Everyone's got some story about how a vegetarian made them feel bad about themselves. So you met one asshat, I meet a lot of non-vegans that are turds on a regular basis, but I don't assume it's because they eat meat and I don't lump all non-vegans with that person. I bet that person you worked with isn't even vegetarian any more if they are that aggressive with their believes.

In my experience vegans and vegetarians who are so for health reasons are a pleasure to be around. But, here in NYC there are many holier-than-thou zealots. If I go to dinner with someone who doesn't want to eat beef (hindu) or pork (muslim or jew) or meat (vegetarian) or alcohol or whatever --- fine. But when I start getting lectured, or am on the receiving side of snarky remarks (eating corpses, murdering innocent creatures) then it IS a problem.

There are jerks everywhere who believe in everything. I do think the jerks tend to be more vocal when they feel like they are in the dominant culture -- vegans in a crunchy part of a hip town will look down a little more on meat eaters, while vegans in "barbecue country" might have to deal with some banter and mild insults.

But sometimes people are just jerks. And they can be unpleasant, no matter what their beliefs.

In the end, people in the world are different. It's the people who don't accept that w

I find if I don't label people 'cunts' they're usually quite friendly.

How odd, I find that if people are quite friendly, I don't usually label them as a "cunt". Indeed, they often have to go out of their way to get into mine before I will do that. And I've lost track of how many times I've had to hear from a complete stranger about how eating meat is bad, because I grew up in Santa Cruz which was at the time full of dippy hippies (and which is now too gentrified for me to afford, so I probably preferred it the old way -- Vegans > Valleys.)

I also know vegans who let their dogs not eat meat. Idiots. They apparently have no problem with animal cruelty, they just don't want to have it on a plate.

Can you quote me a single study showing that properly supplemented vegan diets are inadequate for dogs? I'm guessing not, because there are none. Don't let minor details like lack of evidence stop you from passing judgement on others, though...

But back to the healthy vegans. I bet they take some sorts of supplements and thus support the companies who do the animal testing.

Well, dogs are kind of naturally predisposed to eat meat. That's why they have forward-facing eyes (better depth perception for hunting), big sharp pointy teeth (good for biting big holes in prey) and strong jaw muscles. It just so happens that they can prtty much survive on vegetables alone, but it's pretty miserable for them.It's worth pointing out that you *cannot* feed cats a vegan diet at all; all felidae are unable to synthesize taurine and can only get it from meat. Without taurine, cats gradually go blind. Many spiders have quite a lot of taurine, which is presumably why cats eat them so readily.Feeding any animal a diet that is unsuitable for it is nothing short of abuse. It is hypocrisy in the extreme to criticise feedlot livestock production for feeding cows an un-natural diet and at the same time force domestic pets to eat a diet they simply cannot make use of.

Different animals need different kinds of food sources. Carnivores NEED to eat meat in order to survive. Their bodies cannot synthesize the amino acids necessary for function. Dogs are right on the edge, they can survive on non-meat diets, but they have to be tailored correctly so they get the right amino acids. Cats, on the other hand, are obligate carnivores and must have meat to survive.

So yes, it is cruel to not give an animal the food it needs to survive. If a vegan has done the research and feeds

And why is that bad? I mean, it certainly forces us to re-design our financial system that rely on population growth, but otherwise I think we could very well reduce even the number of people in the developed world.

You don't really think that's due to our diet, do you? It's by no means a problem for a woman to pump out a baby every 9 months and still have more than enough food for them. Hint: Baby food is available from stores.

Having lots of kids in an agricultural society is an advantage. Having lots of kids in an industrialized country with child labour is an advantage. Havings lots of kids in a modern industrialized nation where they're not likely to start supporting themselves until well into their twenties is a liability. People have one or two to satisfy their need for procreation, but the days of 7 - 8 kid families as standard are gone. You'll only get that in families with a

Feminism? You think we'd have more kids if we didn't let our women work?

Ok, let's see. Mr. and Mrs. Average American just married. They're about 25 each. Yes, 25, way after their ability to have kids started. But they have to finish college first, ya know? You ain't really a human being in our society if you didn't go to college. Oh, ok, the bitch doesn't need to learn anything, let's make her 20. Before that, her parents would never let her go and have a family on her own, we're getting closer with every g

Great point. I like how the study apparently holds it to be self-evident that faster brain development is inherently beneficial. There is a tremendous amount of activity, especially development of language processing, that occurs during the infancy phase of humans. We cannot possibly have controlled studies to adequately gauge the overall effects of this -- for ethical reasons alone.